Hawk-Eye Innovations has produced remarkable technology for assisting with line calls in tennis, and in November at the Next Gen ATP Finals, the company will debut yet another version of its product that will make line calls almost completely automated.
The Association of Tennis Professionals announced Monday that the upcoming Next Gen ATP Finals, a men’s youth professional tennis tournament to be held this year in Milan, Italy, will feature Hawk-Eye Live on all line calls. The new service will make real-time, instantaneous “out” calls, rendering obsolete any game officials on the court save for the chair umpire, ATP said.
Because the Hawk-Eye Live system’s calls will be considered final, the existing electronic challenge will be inactive. If a call that Hawk-Eye makes is close, a visualization of the call will be broadcast on video boards around the stadium, and foot faults will be called by a specialized review official with the aid of base- and centerline cameras.
“This could be a landmark moment for officiating in our sport,” Gayle David Bradshaw, ATP’s executive vice president for rules and competition, said in a statement. “Our athletes work incredibly hard and they deserve the very best and most accurate officiating we can offer. The technology is now in a place where we feel comfortable trialling this new system in a real tournament environment. The Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan is the perfect place to do this, and we look forward to monitoring the results and assessing the merits of this new system.”
ATP has been giving emerging technologies a try, and since March 2016, the association has monitored the development of Hawk-Eye Live in cooperation with Hawk-Eye Innovations, according to the ATP. To go along with the implementation of Hawk-Eye Live, ATP is introducing significant changes in its scoring system that will make matches faster and more competitive.
“The Next Gen ATP Finals provides a fantastic platform to showcase the Hawk-Eye Live technology, which we see as the future of tennis officiating,” Sam Green, Hawk-Eye’s Director of Tennis, ELC, told ATP. “Working with the ATP has allowed us to refine the system to not only improve the quality of line calling, but the overall fan experience.”
The focus on introducing new technologies and other aspects of the game aligns well with the purpose of the Next Gen tournament, which is to provide up-and-coming players (21 and under) the chance to be seen on the world stage. The tournament also presents fertile ground, ATP executive chairman Chris Kermode said in May, for experimentation with things like Hawk-Eye Live that could later be implemented at more advanced levels of competition.